


Hold My Hand, It's a Long Way Down

by Melbell-lings (Melee)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Character Death, M/M, Murder, Suicide, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 06:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6317548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melee/pseuds/Melbell-lings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plan was that Matthew would die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold My Hand, It's a Long Way Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mmmmmaple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmmmaple/gifts).



> Written for the wonderful mmmmmaple for a tvtropes meme with the categories Flirting Under Fire and In The Garden of Evil.
> 
> ADDITIONAL WARNING that though the fic doesn't mention age, in the original Hunger Games, the tributes were mostly teenagers. Which means this might also be considered underage depending on how you read it.

The plan was that Matthew would die.

The plan was for Amelia to go ahead, lure that Eliza bitch into the hole they dug and covered. The plan was for Amelia to win and live, and Matthew would be thrown aside like the trash he was.

Like always.

He went right, to circle the base of the mountain while Amelia shot up to the summit. Guess they were lucky the terrain never changed, Matthew thought glumly. If a mountain had risen on the playing field two days into the Games… shit even if it was just one day later instead of as soon as the platforms phased out, she wouldn’t have developed the muscle necessary to lead Eliza up the mountainside. She wouldn’t have the stride necessary to jump the hidden pit.

The one Eliza would die in.

But Matthew shouldn’t really be focused on the deaths of other tributes, not when he has Ivan fucking Braginsky hot on his trail.

Prissy little fucker had a nice, relaxing life – at least, compared to Matthew’s. Still, the guy was practically a mountain himself, and he didn’t need cunning or friends or weapons when he could break someone’s neck with one squeeze of his massive paw.

Ivan fucking Braginsky, who was a sparse hundred metres behind, Matthew was sure, although the terrain wasn’t so open now – Ivan Braginsky, who reached out with that huge hand and dragged Matthew down with him.

Matthew pushed away from him automatically. He rolled, his vision mixing images of that fallen beast with a huge patch of needles he was headed towards. Matthew managed to gain control moments before sliding into a flower with two gaping petals, just waiting for a man-sized snack.

He stood up and Ivan was behind him, wrapping his arms around in a tight hug. “I wouldn’t move,” Ivan whispered between harsh breaths. They were both exhausted. “Too many of these things around.” Too many deadly plants that seemed to be watching their every move excitedly. “I’d rather die looking my killer in the eye.”

“And what, you think dying by this environment is any different?” Those assholes in the control room, watching their every move. Matthew snorted. “Only humans kill humans.”

“I don’t want to be killed by a coward. Now, if you promise to behave, I know a spot with less critters where we can finish this?”

As much as Matthew was loathe to give Ivan any ounce of authority – not here, not fucking here too – he forced himself lax so Ivan would release him. “You know this area?” He asked tersely, still not fully letting his guard down. Not when certain death was so close.

Ivan hummed in affirmation. He gestured aimlessly at the tangle of plants surrounding them. “Water collects at the base of these.” Matthew couldn’t believe Ivan, big ol’ Ivan, was able to negotiate around the hundreds of needles, slim as a single length of hair, to get at sacks Matthew now spotted bulging at the bottom. “District 27 has something like this,” Ivan continued. “Cacti. Although they’re a little, ah, smaller.”

Matthew snorted. “You read that?” Of course Ivan had the time to learn how to read in that cushy little life of his.

Of course, they’re both on the same battlefield now, no matter where they came from. And Matthew should probably be a bit more intimidated at how Ivan can smile at the man who might just be the one to kill him.

“Matthew.” Oh, how he seethed hearing his name from Ivan’s lips! “Is this really the time?”

They went single-file, Ivan in front navigating, off the trail the engineers had carved, and into a hidden opening in the bushes. Broken branches gave Matthew the impression it was man-made – not, as in, those Capital employees safely tucked away in the control room, fucking around with every aspect of their lives. But as though Ivan, with his tiny dagger like a butter knife, spent hours carving into the overgrowth with it. Probably worth the time, to make this little hide-away completely safe from his opponents. Probably why Matthew couldn’t find him until he was chasing off Eliza with that little dagger of his.

Past the needles and man-eating plants was a clearing, with a vulnerable skylight. It had to be engineered, Matthew decided. Another way for the shuttles to come in and pick up the dead bodies.

Which meant it was probably watched.

(As though any part of this fucking terrain wasn’t).

Vines grew around the grassy area, cutting it so a man Ivan’s size could just barely lie down without touching. Fruit, rich red and the size of plums weighted down the arm of each vine in plentiful numbers. The air was overwhelming with their sweet perfume. Obviously poison.

“How could you stand sleeping here every night.” Matthew takes in a deep breath. Though they don’t look it, the fruit smelt just like the pot of stew his mother used to make on special occasions when they had meat enough.

“You don’t seem to think I can withstand temptation at all. My dear Matthew, you don’t give me enough credit.”

“Don’t say my name!” Matthew roared, turning and reaching to his belt for his blade. The length of his forearm and gentle curved, it was perfect for the close combat they were about to engage in. It did him well when he killed Lutz and that mute from District 17, it would be more than enough here.

If only his damn hand would stop shaking.

“Amelia is going to win, isn’t she?” Ivan sighed at Matthew’s weapon and pulled out his own, stuck in his pant’s hem and hidden by his shirt. It was a small carving blade, but Matthew had seen him swing it in a big arch to stick in between Antonio’s ribs.

“’Course she is. Only Eliza is in her way – Well, technically behind her. And let me tell you, after sixteen years of always trailing behind my sister, I can say from experience that Amelia is a sloppy runner.” Matthew smirked. “Although, she has a way of navigating her way through a minefield unscathed. Can’t say the same about whichever poor sap happens to be behind her.”

“Which, from what you just told me, has been you for sixteen years?”

He was trying to rile him up, but Matthew wouldn’t have it. “Yeah. And it’s made me strong enough to take you out now.”

“A pity.” Ivan didn’t look at Matthew, instead at the artificial blue sky above them. “Granted, if anyone should win, that would be Amelia.” District 15 and District 16 were the only inhabited areas directly next to each other. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Amelia’s blasphemy carried past the border. “But really I would rather it was you.”

Matthew flung himself at Ivan. Damn giant was faster than his size gave him credit for, and Matthew’s dirk pierced only a ripe fruit. The juice flung in an arc as Matthew sought to compensate for his target’s new angle, turning on toe and folding his elbow like a hook.

Ivan dodged again, and then again at Matthew’s third attempt. Never did he raise his own blade, not even when Matthew struck close enough he swore he saw a chunk of those silver tresses fly off.

“Matthew,” Ivan cooed. He managed a side jump that spanned the entire breadth of the clearing. “Oh, Matthew.”

“What?” Matthew’s movements became less steady, more hacking. “What!”

“I’ve always been jealous of you.”

Of his family, probably. Poor little Ivan, the product of an illicit affair between the daughter of the District 15 mayor and a resident peacekeeper, the little baby boy neither would fully own up to. Out of sight, out of mind right?

He was jealous of Matthew’s family. Matthew, who prayed all during the opening ceremonies that one of the other tributes would kill his sister so he won’t have to, so he could live. But then there had been the crack of canon and chaos all around and Amelia was the only one who reached out for him, who he could lean on. Family was nice, up until the time Matthew realized he couldn’t let her die.

The plan, in the end, was for Matthew to die.

“I’ve always been jealous,” Ivan continued, smiling like a cheshire cornering its prey. “Of your constant snobbery. You, dear Matthew, made a living shovelling our dung, and you still look down your nose at me.” He cocked his head. “Or is that so you wouldn’t smell the shit all around you?”

“Fucking rich boy,” Matthew snarled. His hand was starting to go numb from the tight grip he kept on his dirk. This would have to end, soon. “Always clean, always standing tall, always with a book in your hand!” You can look down on anyone, even if you’re covered in shit. “You don’t know what actual work is! You don’t know how we actually lived.”

“And yet here we are!” Ivan shouted, spreading his arms wide, perfectly vulnerable to any attack. “In this glorious country of ours, it doesn’t matter if you were born with love or without money! We’re still here, about to die in the end. Oh Matthew, let’s end this soon.”

He hadn’t even finished before Matthew lunged. His aim was perfect, a slicing motion that Ivan couldn’t dodge without either stepping further into the blade or at least getting nicked by it. It would be just Matthew and Amelia left, and Matthew would off himself before Amelia could find him.

Soon it would end, but Matthew didn’t anticipate Ivan stepping forward, angling his body to get close and wrap his hand around Matthew’s on the handle to still his attack. He struggled to shake off Ivan, add some distance, but Ivan dropped his own weapon and gripped Matthew’s other shoulder to pull him close.

“You don’t understand,” Ivan whispered. He was so close, every breath warmed the shell of his ear, teasing his already tense nerves. “I want her to win.”

Matthew didn’t think he could come any closer, but Ivan did, forcing Matthew to tilt his chin back to make room for his head. Ivan gave Matthew’s vulnerable throat an open mouth kiss, the sudden shock of wet tongue shattering whatever tension was left in Matthew. And brought it back again when Ivan bit down hard onto a protruding tendon.

Matthew yelled loud in surprise. When Ivan withdrew, there was red dripping down his chin. Matthew quickly surged forward in Ivan’s loose grip, licking his mouth clean, diving his tongue in for more. He released his dirk in favour of tangling both hands in Ivan’s hair. He was probably pulling too hard, but Ivan moaned so low Matthew yanked harder to hear it again.

There were cameras, Matthew knew as he pushed Ivan to the ground. His mother, his district, they were all watching when Ivan stuck his hand past Matthew’s waistband, making him finally break away from Ivan’s mouth to cry out.

They were all watching. One hundred sacrifices from around the country, fighting and killing for the Capital’s sport. One hundred tortured souls who were tested and embarrassed for the Capital’s enjoyment, and Matthew, rutting with his cock out, was one of them.

Less the focus on Amelia, all alone at the top of the mountain though. Less the chance the engineers will release something heinous on them, since they already had the cameras’ attention.

Matthew wormed his way into the other’s pants, and sighed in pleasure as he nosed his hot, aching hardness against Ivan’s. Another hand wrapped around them next to his own, and together they took themselves, each other, to the brink.

Matthew’s free hand pulled at the nape of Ivan’s hair, pulled him closer. He brought his mouth to his, opening and closing, trying to say something but not knowing what.

It ended soon, too soon. Ivan tried to curl in on himself, but couldn’t with Matthew there. He settled for gasping instead, needy, helpless breaths stolen from Matthew’s mouth. And for Matthew, the heavy weight of Ivan pushing on him was not as terrifying as he would have thought before; and there was something reassuring in the way he hooked his arm around Matthew, a one-armed embrace.

Never before would he have thought himself as feeling safe with Ivan Braginsky. Ivan Braginsky, who loitered outside his own home, abandoning his book to stare Matthew down as he wheeled through; Ivan Braginsky, who laughed himself silly at the training pavilion when he saw Matthew walk in. Ivan fucking Braginsky, who called after Matthew when he and Amelia were scrambling away with their newly poached weapons on that first day, “I’ll find you, Matthew! I’ll find you!”

Who would have thought he had found a home with Ivan Braginsky, moments before their deaths.

Matthew shuddered when he finished, Ivan’s arm secure around him, holding him upright.

They stayed still for several moments afterward. Matthew smiled at the pleasurable feeling of too much oxygen filling his brain, then spreading down every limb. His nerves were heightened, but in a different way than before. Loathe as he was to separate, a loud boom shattered their peace. They jumped away from each other on instinct, back on opposite sides of the small glade again.

“A canon.”

Ivan mimicked Matthew’s movements of doing up his pants, making himself presentable for the viewers again. “Who do you think it was?”

“Eliza,” Matthew said firmly, fierce in his belief. “It has to be.”

“It has to be,” Ivan echoed slowly. He realized he caught Matthew’s attentions and nodded insistently. “But what,” he asked shyly. “What does this mean for you?”

Matthew laughed. His lips were still red from their kissing and the afterglow hadn’t yet worn off. “Well, I might need your knife.”

“Right.” Ivan frowned. “Matthew…”

“I’m not going after my own sister. Besides, what then? It’ll just be us two. Two from each district go in, but only one winner can come out.” Matthew reached out to finger one of the mysterious fruits, hanging low on the branch. Deliciously plump and temptingly red and just begging to be eaten. “There’s no real solution, not really. So I’ll just have to remove myself from the problem.”

“There’s a new wind blowing,” Ivan said suddenly, and Matthew turned away from the fruit to him, bewildered.

“What?”

“It means, dear Matthew.” And Ivan had his condescending smile on his face again. The one that made Matthew hate him so much, the one that Matthew can now see is pulled down at the edges by heartbreak. “That I’m a coward. That I can’t do what’s necessary to win this contest the Capital made, here –” Ivan stopped, his mouth moving to make the next word but stopping part of the way. Instead he tipped his head to the side slightly, and Matthew understood. Neither here nor out there. Just like Matthew.

Matthew wasn’t the revolutionary in the family. He kept his head down and did hard work, but never was he blind to the unjust conditions they all lived in. Never did he stop hoping for a better situation.

“Three minus two is one,” Ivan whispered. “Even you know that.”

“Calling me stupid, rich boy?” Matthew tugged the fruit from the branch, making as though to throw it teasingly.

“Never.” Ivan retrieved his knife. “Never,” he said again softly, turning it in his hand.

He offered the blade aloft. “I don’t think I can.” So Matthew met him in the middle, tugged him down so they were both on their knees, like before, wrapped around one another.

“In the side, between the ribs. Right to the hilt, and turn it if you can.” Ivan took Matthew’s free hand, wrapped it around the handle and his hand around Matthew’s wrist. He brought both to his left side, to show what to do. “That should scramble the heart. Make it more… quick.”

Matthew brought the fruit to his lips. His teeth slipped over the smooth peel in a mock bite. “It should…” he repeated on the surface.

Ivan chuckled, and the exhale moved Matthew’s hair. “A lot of things should’ve happened that didn’t. A lot of people died who shouldn’t have.” He pressed a kiss, a last kiss, to the crown of Matthew’s head. Matthew took a huge bite from the fruit. “But maybe something that should happen will now.”

Matthew met Ivan’s eyes just long enough to register the sadness in them – what they could have had, all the maybes and mights they weren’t allowed, what they were dying for Amelia to fight for – and he plunged the knife deep between Ivan’s ribs.

Ivan’s face registered the shock for just a moment before returning to its previous grief, and above all, the disbelief is what surprised Matthew the most. Even after his last breath, even after his body was so lax, he was only being held up by Matthew, his eyes stayed open.

The fruit tasted just the way Matthew knew it would, like his mother’s love and family dinners and rest after an exhausting day. Matthew thought of Ivan at the table with them, of tucking in and delighting at the jovial atmosphere. The fruit tasted so much sweeter.

He leaned forward and kissed Ivan, leaving sticky red juice on his mouth.

Matthew swallowed.


End file.
